Buckinghamshire Council’s communities boss has hailed the use of live facial recognition cameras in the Eden Centre.

Conservative cabinet member for communities, Steve Bowles, said he was “delighted” to support the initiative by Thames Valley Police, which deployed  facial recognition vans at the centre in High Wycombe.

He said the technology had “enjoyed success” during its two previous uses in the town.

“Most notably, it includes the arrest of an individual who was outstanding for a number of years for violent offences,” Mr Bowles said.

“Ultimately the purpose is to supplement officers’ ‘human’ recognition skills with that of technology, to assist us in reducing the number of outstanding offenders at large in our community.”

Live Facial Recognition works by capturing images of faces and creating a biometric template from key features.

This template is then compared to a watch list of individuals known to police, and if a potential match is found, officers are alerted in real-time.

Thames Valley Police currently use two types of facial recognition technology.

Live Facial Recognition is used for real-time identification, while Retrospective Facial Recognition is applied after an incident to match still images from CCTV or other sources against the Police National Database.

The force does not currently use Operator Initiated Facial Recognition, which involves officers taking photos on mobile devices to be compared against a predetermined watch list to assist an officer in identifying the person.

Thames Valley Police said that the use of facial recognition technology is carefully balanced with privacy, legal, and ethical considerations.

The use of the technology however had not been welcomed by everyone, campaign groups such as Big Brother Watch strongly oppose the technology.

It accused police forces and private companies of “quietly rolling out” the cameras, saying peoples ‘faceprints’ were being taking often without their own knowledge.

“This is an enormous expansion of the surveillance state — and it sets a dangerous precedent worldwide. We must stop this dangerously authoritarian surveillance now,” the group said on their website.

“Facial recognition is spiralling out of control in the UK and there are no clear laws in place to protect our privacy.

“Unlike CCTV, facial recognition doesn’t just record what you do, your face becomes a barcode in the same way as your fingerprint or your DNA.”

Businesses in the centre reported positive feedback following the use of the technology.

A Thames Valley Police spokesperson previously said that multiple stores had reported a “noticeable reduction” in theft and an increased sense of safety, which was largely attributed to the use of facial recognition technology.